MOMENTS

​​After a week working in the beautiful Dominican countryside, all the members of our small group of students agreed that a hot shower was the first order of business upon returning home. We all joked about how the showers we took during the past week were breathtakingly cold, how your feet were never clean for long because of the thick mud outside the shower area, and how we never had privacy in our latrine with the rats and spiders were constantly keeping watchful eyes on us. Despite these uncomfortable conditions, we took advantage of the latrine and shower as often as we desired. It’s hard to believe that the community in Vereda al Medio didn’t even have access to clean water before BLUE arrived. Yet there have always been people living there—even if they previously had to walk for hours to get clean water.

After taking my own hot shower today, I began thinking about what it really meant to help people living in places like the campo (country) in the Dominican Republic. We often think about how horrible the conditions are, how sad it must be not to have access to bathrooms and hot water, or how sick the people must be from their unmet sanitary needs. We swear that we would never be able to live in such conditions ourselves, and that we need to donate what we perceive as basic human needs to those who have not. Yet, whether we give them materials or not, people in the campo survive and life goes on.

The resilience and resourcefulness of humans never ceases to amaze me. One of the most amazing instances I had seen was one of the holes a Dominican family dug for the latrine we were going to build. BLUE asks that each family who wants a latrine must dig the pit for it themselves, as a personal investment into the project. The hole that this family dug appeared to be 15 feet deep, and it was dug with shovels and a bucket with a rope to pull out the dirt. As I looked down into this seemingly bottomless abyss, I saw the beauty of BLUE’s mission. Philanthropy is not about giving—it’s about sharing. There we were, laying concrete in the hot sun over a pit dug by a family who decided to accept BLUE’s offer for a latrine project. Our group’s work intersected with the family’s work, and both of us got something out of the end result. The family gained privacy and cleanliness from a latrine project, while our group gained a greater appreciation for our own access to privacy and cleanliness. We both shared in the work, and we both received something to be grateful for in the end. Such a fair transaction is rarely found in the world.

Looking back on our trip, I can easily say that the greatest gift I received was perspective. I now see service work not as “alms for the poor” but as “offering a helping hand to a neighbor.” A neighbor doesn’t really need your help, and he could often get by without it, but sometimes, it’s nice to have. The people of Vereda al Medio already have plenty in their lives. They love to dance, they have a strong sense of community and help one another daily, and most importantly, they are profoundly grateful people. It was a great honor to meet them, live with them, love them, and lend a helping hand to make their lives a little easier.

It was very late on a Friday evening as I sat in the trauma bay of our University hospital. I was about halfway done with my trauma-shadowing shift when the infamous blue lights above my head began flashing. I felt the same surge of adrenalin I remember feeling as an EMT when our page tones would startle me awake. It unfortunately meant that someone was very sick or injured, but it also meant that we were getting the very real opportunity to help someone.

The M3 student that had been so incredible at guiding me around the hospital all evening had a pager that alerted her that it was a delta trauma patient with a gunshot wound we were about to receive. The delta classification is reserved for the most injured patients, so we prepared accordingly. My M3 instructed me to don the full range of personal protective equipment: gloves, gown, face shield, and mask as practice for the future. As just an M1 shadow, I wasn’t expected to actually participate in the case, just watch.

Within the span of just minutes, approximately 40 people descended on the trauma bay. Doctors, nurses, paramedics, radiology technicians, and social workers arrived all prepared to respond to the needs of our critically injured patient. About that time, two paramedics came bursting through the door: one at the helm of the stretcher, the other on top of it actively performing CPR on a patient who was clearly loosing blood quickly.

Following right behind them came the attending trauma surgeon of the evening. She took control of the crowd of healthcare workers as if a conductor leading an orchestra. Each individual knew their role in caring for the patient, but her job became coordinating the combined efforts of the entire team. It became quickly apparent that radical measures must be taken to give this patient a chance to survive, leading the surgeon to perform a bedside thoracotomy. This is a procedure done to open up the chest, often so that compressions can be done directly on the patient’s heart, which is much more effective than regular CPR. A paramedic student jumped at the opportunity and began pumping the patient’s heart, a procedure known as cardiac massage.

After 3-4 minutes of this process, the paramedic student became fatigued and needed someone to take his place. A trauma nurse at the head of the bed yelled, “We need a sub on cardiac massage!” and it seemed as though all 40 people in the room looked around for anyone who was gowned and ready that could fill the position.

I stood at the head of the bed, still taking in all of the activity I was seeing for the first time when another paramedic grabbed me by the shoulders, shouting “Everybody move, cardiac massage sub coming through!” I had nearly reached the bedside before I realized that I, in fact, had been drafted as the person to begin squeezing the patient’s heart. I looked around as if to say, “Does everyone here realize that I’m an M1? We just finished genetics, I have no idea what I’m doing!” But after an encouraging nod from my M3 chaperone, I approached the patient.

The attending surgeon stood directly opposite of me, and gave me quick instructions to insert my hands into the patient’s opened chest cavity, and to squeeze the patient’s heart fast and hard allowing for complete recoil after each compression. Without thinking, I began doing exactly as she instructed.

Lots of things go through your mind while you’re pumping someone else’s heart for them. “Am I doing this right?”, “I’m actually holding a person’s heart”, and “I wonder if we can actually save this person” just to name a few. I also began to realize that the patient’s heart was attempting to beat in my hands, in between the compressions I was doing. This activity wasn’t organized enough to support the patient’s life, but the feeling of a beating heart in between my fingers was somehow more profound than anything I had ever experienced before. I realized that I was holding the very thing that is most important to life on a minute-to-minute basis.

My attitude instantly changed from that of an observer to that of a man who was personally invested in an underdog that had nearly insurmountable odds stacked against them. After more medications and shocks from the team, the patient’s rhythm changed from disorganized to normal, creating a heart that was beating independent of my intervention. It felt as if the patient had made a full court basket with seconds on the clock to tie the game. I knew we were not out of the woods yet, but we may have a fighting chance.

As rapidly as the newfound pulse came, it left yet again, and it became quite apparent that our efforts were no longer in the best interest of the patient. The attending surgeon made the decision that we would not continue resuscitation efforts, and announced the official time of death.

What does this all mean? In the span of 20 minutes I transitioned from someone who was enthusiastic about science and healthcare to a person who was intimately involved in the last moments of someone’s life. When a case like this happens, my mind instantly jumps to thoughts like “What didn’t go well? What could we have done a little better?”, but the truth is we did everything that could have been done. All 40 people in the room performed their job to the highest level of accuracy, and yet we were unable to make any difference in the outcome. It’s a hard lesson for a first year medical student to learn, but a necessary one nonetheless.

I did learn some insightful things about myself though. I love the process of decision making under pressure, in the face of unknowns. I love the true team effort that occurs with trauma patients. I love the ability to make a real difference in a patient’s life right now as opposed to over weeks or months. I learned that I thrive in these high intensity, make or break situations. I learned that trauma surgery is where I belong in the world. ​

Okay, well I've technically only been in med school for like two months. But, I have definitely experienced and learned a LOT in that short amount of time- and I don't mean just academically. Here's a few things I've picked up these past couple months in med school:

1. There IS such a thing as too much of a good thing. There is almost always a lunch lecture to attend, and they almost always serve free food. YAY! FOOD! ...right? However, that free food is almost ALWAYS pizza. This was exciting until I noticed my diet was rapidly becoming pizza, pizza, pizza - which just makes you feel awful! I've learned to pack healthy lunches, and often dinners, too - for a day and night full of studying.

2. Studying is life. Having just graduated this past Spring, I was pretty used to never studying until the night before an exam, or maybe a day or two. Now I'm studying EVERY night for an exam that's not even for another two weeks. Why? Because everything just moves so gosh darn fast. You learn so much in a day, it would be impossible to cram and do well on an exam. I miss the lax days of undergrad, but I've become so used to the studying way of life. It's also a lot less painful knowing that all of your classmates are going through the exact same thing.

3. There are never enough hours in the day.Every day I feel like I have more and more stuff to do. I've had to seriously figure out time management. I thought I thought I had it down before now - but I quickly realized that I did not. Five hours of studying used to seem like such a long time...but it isn't. There's always something to do or study.

4. Take breaks. This is so key. If you can just study nonstop for hours and hours every day then good for you. But I cannot just sit in one place for so long. I go out and exercise every day (mostly to make up for my hours of sitting). But also just sitting and watching an episode on Netflix or doing anything relaxing is so key. It might feel like a waste of valuable study time - but when you go back to studying you feel so much better and your mind and body will thank you! And different people recharge different ways. As an introvert, I've learned that I really just need to relax by myself, whereas others want to go out with a lot of people to relax. And there's nothing wrong with either way. You just really need to do what's best for you.

And last, but not least:

5. I belong here. I've already had a few mini crises relating to my dramatic life changes. I've had loved ones get very sick and die while I'm stuck studying in MMEC studying the immune system. I have gone weeks without talking to friends I used to see every day. I've missed occasions for celebration like birthdays and weddings, as well as tragedy, when I wanted so bad to just be there for someone. It often feels like I'm missing out on the world because I'm preoccupied with medical school. - But what's important is that I like where I am. I'm stressed on the regular and sometimes I just want to throw in the towel. But I really love it here at MCV. Things are SO hard (I cannot stress how hard med school is), but there are 200+ other students here going through the exact same thing. We're all in it together. I really miss everything about my "old" life- my free time, the late nights doing nothing, and especially my friends and family. But I am so happy to be where I am right now because I know that one day, I will be what I've always wanted to be - a doctor. :)